The Lost Blogs #31

Travel Dates: Sat, April 28, 2012 – Thu, May 3, 2012

Our day trip to Miyako Island was probably the highlight of our Okinawa vacation, so it was so hard to board that plane and return to Naha for the night. We knew we had to get out of Naha again for our last full day in the islands, but without any other flights planned, there was only one other option: we needed to island-hop by ferry.

Luckily, a friend of mine had recently taken a trip to Okinawa and had posted pictures from a place called Zamami Island. Even luckier, there is an English teacher on Zamami who put together a very informative website called Zamami English Guide, which made it very easy for us to plan our day trip to the island. Zamami belongs to a group of islands called the Kerama Islands, a group of 22 islands about 20 miles southwest of Okinawa Honto. Only four of the islands are inhabited: Zamami Island, Aka Island, Geruma Island, and Tokashiki Island. The Zamami English Guide website also provides tourist information for Aka and Geruma Islands.

Zamami Island is located 50-minutes away from Naha by ferry. English ferry information can be found here. From Naha’s Tamari Port, there are two ferries which can take you to Zamami Island: the Queen Zamami III and Ferry Zamami. The Queen Zamami III is a small passenger ferry that runs twice daily regularly, and three times daily during peak seasons like Golden Week. The Ferry Zamami is a larger boat which is cheaper and can take passengers in addition to vehicles. We chose to take the Queen Zamami III and purchased our tickets the same day as our departure.

And here we are, super excited to get out of rainy Naha and out onto the beach!

I wish we had a picture for what we looked like just a few minutes later. The ride, though short, ended up being extremely rocky. We were making jokes about being on a roller coaster, and then suddenly all of us were holding onto our stomachs, feeling queasy, trying not to vomit. The early rainy season had brought along stormy weather, and with the storm, strong winds, which were causing large waves in the ocean. It didn’t help that there was another passenger boat running alongside us, which also sent waves crashing into our boat.

50 minutes later, we arrived at Zamami Port. The weather wasn’t anywhere near as nice as we had experienced in Miyako, but at least the rain had stopped. We spent a good half hour inside the lobby waiting for our stomachs to settle and grabbing maps for the area.

Once everyone was feeling better, we started to make our way on foot to Furuzamami Beach (古座間味ビーチ). It is the most famous beach in the Kerama islands, so many tourists come here. We were expected it to be crowded when we arrived, but we suspect a number of people may have canceled or changed their plans because of the early rainy season, because there weren’t that many people on the island when we arrived.

Furuzamami Beach is located about 1 mile east from Zamami Port. English maps are available in the Visitor Information Center in the port. There aren’t many roads on the island either, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost. Though it’s only a mile away, it took us more than 20 minutes to reach the beach because we were enjoying the rural scenery…

Also, it was an uphill walk, but it’s a little embarrassing to mention that we struggled with that. ^^;;;

Yay! We made it!

Upon arriving at the beach, we came across a small building which has two restaurants, rental companies, and shops. The shops carry sunscreen and underwater cameras, and the rental shops provide umbrellas, lounge chairs, and snorkeling equipment. If you rent from them, they’ll provide a free ride back to the port when you’re ready to head back.

We were pretty hungry, so we decided to eat first. The only other places to eat were back in the small town north of the port, and we didn’t want to walk back after coming all the way out here.

My husband ordered the loco moco, which is actually a Hawaiian dish consisting of a hamburger patty with gravy and an egg over rice. I went for taco rice and a bottle of sanpin-cha (さんぴん茶). Sanpin-cha is the Okinawan name for Jasmine tea. On mainland Japan, Jasmine tea is just called “jasmine-cha” (ジャスミン茶). In Okinawa, Jasmine tea is actually more popular than traditional Japanese green tea (“o-cha” お茶) or oolong tea (“oolong-cha” ウーロン茶).

After lunch, we got set up on the beach. There wasn’t any sun out, but we got the umbrella anyway. Our plan for the day was to simply lounge around and enjoy the cloudy, but dry, day. Eat some snacks, read some books, listen to islandy music on our iPods, snorkel… you know, just chill. :)

I ended up not renting any snorkeling gear because the water was already deep close to shore (at least, deep to me, in comparison to Yoshino Beach). I mentioned before in one of my earlier posts, but I can’t swim. So, when I snorkel, I usually have to wear the full gear with a puffy life jacket, and I need my husband near me so I don’t panic and get an anxiety attack in the water. The boys both went snorkeling though, and they said there were plenty of fish to see! I was a little envious. But even if you don’t go into the water, it’s a pretty cool beach to explore…

So that was pretty much our day on Zamami Island. There’s another nearby beach, Ama Beach, located west of Zamami Port. We skipped out on this one because it’s not known for snorkeling, although there is supposedly a strong chance of seeing sea turtles here.

We took the free ride from the rental shop back to the port, then walked a few minutes north and into the cute, tiny little town.

In town, we came across Mango Cafe, which sells shaved-ice (“kakigori” かき氷) sweets. In case you don’t make it out to Zamami Island, Mango Cafe also has a small booth at Tomari Port in Naha City.

Above, you can see I enjoyed a very delicious Mango Kakigori topped with condensed milk, brown sugar, and mango, and coconut. Yum! Let’s have a closer look…

SERIOUSLY. YUM!!!

Mango Cafe also serves Okinawa-zenzai (ぜんざい), which is shaved ice with red bean jam and mochi, and mango-zenzai which has red bean jam and mochi served over a delicious mango kakigori like you see above.

We also stumbled into Cafe Kafu-shi which walking around. We were drawn in by a cute, lazy cat and decided to try it out since they served various flavors of sata-andagi, another Okinawan specialty which we had yet to try. Sata-andagi is a deep-fried bun, similar to Portugese malasadas which are popular in Hawaii. Made of flour, sugar, and eggs, the batter is formed into a ball and deep-fried.

They carried the following flavors:

• sugar (plain)
• brown sugar
• banana
• mango
• “shio” salt
• “beni-imo” crimson potato

We wanted to try them all, but we settled for salt (above), mango, and crimson potato flavors. Everything was tasty! These would go great with a cup of coffee or milk tea.

I enjoyed sata-andagi so much that I ended up taking home a cute sata-pandagi tote bag home as my souvenir. :)

lazy cats :)

In the late afternoon, the Queen Zamami III came back to pick us up. We were really dreading this ride back, partially because of how rocky the ride had been coming to Zamami, and partially because it would bring us back to Naha. But luckily, the rain had stopped, and we were able to make reservations at GeN, an Okinawan Yakiniku Restaurant that we hadn’t been able to eat at earlier in the week.

Agu pork and wagyu beef for Okinawan yakiniku! Yum!

Check back in a few days for the final post in the Okinawa series!